Painting A Vermont Winter During A California Summer

Thanks for checkin' out the Bsombin' blog! Business has been slow, this year, to say the least. I have been the embodiment of the term "starving artist" since the start of the year. But things have been picking up lately... The funny thing is most of the work I have been getting lately has nothing to do with art or photography. But I did get commissioned to paint a canvas last month. So I thought I would quickly share my processes for creating a custom piece of art...

It was the first time in over 3 years that I've painted a large canvas. It was also the first time I've ever painted a landscape painting. And, to pull me even further out of my comfort zone, I was asked to paint it in a more traditional landscape style. My client had an idea of what she was looking for and gave me a good description of the type of scene she wanted. First, I googled some images for reference and drew up the first round of 4 rough sketches for her to look at.

 Once she picked one of the rough sketch, I went back and drew a secondary sketch with more detail, to give her a better feel for what the canvas would look like. She liked the secondary sketch. But she wanted the house to be a different color and she wanted all the trees to be fluffy snow covered pine trees.

With those changes in mind, I got to work on the canvas. I had a few other jobs I was working on while painting it. So it took me a while to finish it. It took a couple of weeks before I was able to deliver the finished piece to my client. But she was very happy when she saw it in person. She had it made as a gift for her assistant (who was out of town) and was going to surprise him with it when he got back.

I've spoken to her since and she said her assistant loved the canvas and wanted another. So now I'm waiting to hear back on some more possible commissions I might be working on in the coming weeks...